1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical card connector, and particularly to an electrical card connector mounted on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for retaining an electrical card therein.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, electrical cards are widely used in the field of electronic appliances. Electrical card connectors are adapted to connect the electrical cards to the appliances, in which the electrical card connectors are mounted on a PCB of the appliances and electrical cards are retained therein, so that information can be transferred therebetween.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional electrical card connector is shown, which includes an insulating housing 1, a plurality of conductive terminals 2, and an ejector 3. The insulating housing 1 has a base portion 11, a first side arm 12 and a second side arm 13 extending parallel to each other from two ends of the base portion 11, respectively, so as to form a receiving cavity 14 for retaining an electrical card 4.
The conductive terminals 2 are arranged in the base portion 11 of the insulating housing 1. Each of the conductive terminals 2 includes a soldering portion extending from a bottom portion of the insulating housing 1 for electrically connecting to a PCB (not shown), and a contact portion extending through to the receiving cavity 14 for electrically connecting to the electrical card 4 introduced therein.
The ejector includes a slider 31, a spring 32, and a guide rod 33 fixed to the slider 31, in which the slider 31 can slide on the insulating housing 1 in a front-to-back direction. The insulating housing has a slide groove 34 therein, and one end (not labeled) of the guide rod 33 is slideably mated with the slide groove 34. The end of the guide rod 33 has two sliding tracks for sliding in the slide groove 34.
When being inserted or ejected, the electrical card 4 is pushed along a insertion direction, and the electrical card 4 pushes the slider 31. Insertion or ejection of the electrical card 4 is accomplished by sliding the guide rod 33 along the slide groove 34.
However, in the configuration of the conventional electrical card connector, the slider 31 is slideably engaged with the insulating housing 1; the slider is thus likely to shake up and down while sliding along the insulating housing. It is also likely that this configuration becomes flexible when the shaking is enhanced, which adversely affects the operation of the ejector 3 and the whole electrical card connector.
Moreover, when the electrical card 4 is inserted into the receiving cavity 14, the electrical card is not fixed stably to the electrical card connector. The electrical card thus cannot reliably electrically connect to the electrical card connector.
Furthermore, a front portion of the first side arm 12 and the second side arm 13 of the insulating housing 1 are formed free ends, respectively. The first and second side arms 12 and 13 are likely to be expanded or distorted when the electrical card 4 is inserted or ejected.
It is thus desirable to provide an improved electrical card connector for containing electrical cards that overcomes the above problems.